I have received your letter, but you appear to wish me to remain as wise as before. Perhaps this is an answer after all, I don't know. I dare not venture to write that which I wish to, because I don't feel to know you. Perhaps you don't know me any better. You must not think I am any longer the soft fellow that you crushed the spirit out of, as I sat and watched you dance; I have had many provings since then. Neither am I, as I used to be, like those long-haired dogs that hang their ears and shun people; but enough of this now.
Your letter was humorous enough, but the joking was just where it should not have been, for you understood me quite well, and you should have known that I did not ask in joke, but because lately I have not been able to think of anything else than that I asked you about. I waited anxiously, and then there came nothing but foolery.
Farewell, Marit Heidegaard. I shall take care not to look too much at you as I did at that dance. Grant you may both eat well and sleep well, and get your new web finished, and grant above all, that you may shovel away the snow lying before the church door.
With all respect,
Ovind Thoresen Pladsen.
To Ovind Thoresen.
In spite of my age and the weakness of my eyes, together with the pain in my hip, I must yet give in to the entreaties of the young, for they are glad to make use of the old people when they stick fast themselves. They call and cry till they are let loose, and then they run away again and will not hear us any more. This time it is Marit, who, with many coaxing words, has begged me to write a letter to send with hers, as she dare not trust herself to write alone. She had thought she had Jon Hatlen or another fool to deal with, and not one that schoolmaster Baard had brought up, but now the matter has come to a critical point. Yet you have been a little too hard, for there are some women who joke to keep from weeping. I am glad, however, that you look at serious things seriously, otherwise you could not laugh at that which is laughable. The position in which you stand to each other, is now apparent from many things. I have often had my doubts about Marit, for she is variable as the wind, but now I know she has refused Jon Hatlen, and greatly enraged her grandfather thereby. She was pleased when she received your letter, and it was not to repulse you that she wrote jokingly. She has suffered much, and that in waiting for the one she cared for, and now you will not have her but set her aside as a foolish child.
This was what I had to say to you, and if you take my advice you ought to be at one with her, for you will find enough besides to trouble you. I am like an old man who has seen three generations;--I know folly and its reward.
Your father and mother send their best love to you: they long to see you back. I have always avoided speaking of this before, lest it should make you home-sick. You do not know your father, and when you really learn to know him, you will marvel. He has been depressed and silent in respect of his affairs, but your mother made his mind easy, and now things look brighter.
Now my eyes grow dim, and my hand is unsteady, so I commend you to Him whose eye is ever watchful and whose hand stayeth not.